Quick Green Reads For The Weekend Volume 103.

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This weekend I plan on doing some cleaning around the house and then some hiking, since it is supposed to be about 50 degrees all weekend. A storm might be coming in for next week, so I better get out while I can! On to some reads I found interesting from this past week…

According to reports coming out of the fancy, invite-only TED conference, Bill Gates has unleashed a swam of mosquitoes into a crowd listening to him speak. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been fighting insect born diseases like malaria for the last few years — diseases that are expected to worsen with global warming. While giving a speech about the foundation’s campaign to snuff out malaria, Gates reportedly said something to the effect of “not only poor people should experience this.” Good for you Bill.

Allie is experimenting with baking soda during baking soda week. Go see what she’s up to!

Sweden Bans Mercury, Should We Consider Doing the Same? The Government’s decision means that products containing mercury may not be placed on the Swedish market. In practice this means that alternative techniques will have to be used in dental care, chemical analysis and the chloralkali industry. The Swedish Chemicals Agency will be authorised to issue regulations on exceptions or grant exemptions in individual cases.

50 years ago everyone used cloth diapers, but in the early 1960’s towards the end of the baby boom, disposable diapers hit the scene to take care of the increasing amount of baby “boom boom” that these amorous new parents were dealing with. Today 95% of families use disposable diapers. At the tune of 5000 to 8000 diapers per child that ads up to 3.6 tons of dirty diapers (2.1% of America’s municipal solid waste). With all that poop piling up in the landfills people started to question the environmental impact and a largely potty partisan battle began between the cloth and disposable diaper industries”¦ and the cloth vs disposable debate rages on.